My mother loved picnics and she quite often would organize a picnic for a Sunday afternoon, and we would go maybe down by the river. We lived along the Grand River. It was across the field and stuff, but we lived fairly close to the Grand River on our property and, and there was woods and stuff. And my mom would say, "How about if we have a picnic today?" And so she would start fixing stuff, and we'd be thinking about what we could take on the picnic, and getting things organized. Taking them, what we need to take with us, ‘cause we would go down by the bank of the river, and we'd build a fire, and we would cook over the open fire. And we would most always cook hot dogs because that was the easiest thing to cook over an open fire without having to bring along dishes and a tripod and all that kind of stuff. But I remember so many times of going on picnics at various places along the river or, there was one very special time, I remember. It was before my father died. He died twenty eight years ago. And my sister was home from Seattle for a visit and Mom said, "Let's go on a picnic." And so, my dad was in really poor health, and he said, "I don't think I can go on a picnic." He said, "I, I can't get down to the river." And I said -- my sister and I said, "Well, we'll figure out a way to get you there." And so what we did instead of everybody walking down there, we took the pickup truck, and we loaded my dad in the truck, and we drove down and got as close as we could get to our picnic site, and then my sister and I used -- my sister was in mountain rescue in -- out in Washington, out of Seattle, she was on a mountain rescue team, and she knew how to carry people that were injured and stuff. And so, her and I made what she called a basket with our arms crossed under my dad, and we carried my dad from the truck over to the area where we were gonna have our picnic. And that's such a special memory because that was his last picnic. And I was so…

So we managed to get on the Mackinac Bridge and it’s, it's a nice bridge. I, I was really, I was so apprehensive about going on it, but my daughter wanted to go so I thought, “I'll brave it for her.” And the reason I was apprehensive is, many years ago when I took them on a road trip through California, we got on the Golden Gate Bridge. I can't remember if we got on the Oakland Bridge, we might have. But the Golden Gate Bridge was so terrifying that as soon as -- as soon as we were on it, I just wanted to get off. But you're stuck, you're committed to it. Once you get on the bridge, you have to cross over the bridge. I think what made the Golden Gate Bridge so terrifying was, it's up so high that you can see all the way down and you, you realize you're so far up in the air, and if there's some horrible mishap, you could plummet down into the ocean. It was, it was just, really frightening and probably the traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. That probably add, added to it. Today coming up on the Mackinac Bridge, it wasn't frightening and that really surprised me that it wasn't frightening. I did steal glimpses off to each side to the lake and it looked like we're traveling over the ocean, and it's, it was such a far, far bridge, because it just kept going for several minutes. I think one of the reasons it wasn't so frightening was that it's much lower than the -- or it seems much lower than the Golden Gate Bridge. Another one is maybe that they used the steel cables instead of the steel construction ‘cause Golden Gate Bridge has a lot of steel bars. And maybe the -- I don't think it's the color of the Golden Gate Bridge versus the color of the Mackinac Bridge. The Mackinac Bridge has a lot more openness to it because of the steel cables. So you, you’re just looking into the sky and the lake. So you have that feeling of openness and nature. The Golden Gate Bridge, you see the concrete, the bases for the pillars that are holding up the bridge. Maybe it's the cragginess of the rocks on either side. The Mackinac Bridge is just straight through, you’re looking…

I feel like every guy that I've liked has kinda just rejected me. Which, it's totally fine and cool it -- for the most part it turns out to be for the best because I find out really horrible things about them. And so it's always like “Oh I've kinda dodged a bullet” but this is the first guy that, you know, it kinda hurts, it kinda stings. But on the plus side, I mean I didn't cry about it until like I was on the phone call with my mom like talking with -- like our weekly phone calls and she asked me how I was and then I just broke down into tears. So I'm kind of using this as sort of a motivational thing. It sounds like I haven't processed it. I think I was waiting for this rejection in order to make a change. I feel like it's what I needed in order to actually implement the next phases of my life, which is, I’m actually gonna do running again. I really loved running. It's one of those things where I don't like doing it in public, but I love running like a track or on the treadmill. Just something that gets my blood pumping. And, you know, I don't like doing it competitively either but it's just something that I've been wanting to do for the longest time, but really haven't found the confidence to do. So I'm kind of using this whole situation of this guy rejecting me as a way to run more. I did today. I ran for three miles. I was pacing myself, so I'm just very excited, I think, about you know, now I don't have to focus on him and whether or not “do I look good” or anything. I know I look good. I know I'm killing it. Now it's just a matter of actually implementing my life changes, which now I have time to think about ‘cause I'm not thinking about him. So I'm actually super excited to begin this new phase in life and you know, it turns out that the way that it works in my situation, ro- uh, romantic relationships always hit when I least expect them or when I'm not looking for them. So maybe this is a good opportunity.